Question

Hailey was recently promoted to the position of production manager in the manufacturing plant of a company that makes desktop printers for commercial and home use. Her department is responsible for producing the printer drums that house the cartridges. Hailey has an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering and an MBA. She aspires toward eventually holding a high-level leadership position in manufacturing or operations. Hailey therefore considers her promotion to production manager to be a building block in her career. She says: “Our country became great by building things. That’s why I love manufacturing. Here’s my chance at age 26 to make a difference as a manufacturing leader.” Having worked as an industrial engineer for two years at the plant, Hailey understands the technology behind printer drums, as well as the manufacturing process. During her first week in her new assignment, Hailey spent a lot of time talking with her two supervisors and many production technicians. She was particularly looking for ways in which she could provide leadership to the group. Hailey asked Jud, an experienced supervisor, what changes needed to be made in the functioning of the department. Jud replied: “Right now things are going well. Despite the worldwide decline in the number of desktop computers purchased, we have a nice steady demand for new drums. The office-supply stores still sell a lot of replacement drums for existing printers. I notice too that morale is okay in my department. Just keep the year-end raises and bonuses flowing (said with a laugh).” Hailey asked Jenna, a supervisor with five years of experience, the same question. Jenna said: “I think the biggest problem we face is not having enough new, qualified production technicians. Maybe making drums is hum-drum, but you need skill to do the job right. These days, most young people don’t want to make things. They just want to stay glued to their mobile devices. Also, a lot of the people we recruit for entry-level jobs can’t do much math, and they don’t want to talk. We need to find a pipeline of new blood for our basic production jobs.”

1. Advise Hailey on where she should get started in making a difference as a leader in the drum-manufacturing department

2. To what extent do you think it is advisable for Hailey to interview workers in the department to get some input as to what she should do as their leader?

NB: Please make sure that the response is typed out, and not hand written. Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

1. Advise Hailey on where she should get started in making a difference as a leader in the drum-manufacturing department

First of all she should study the performance and sales related data of their department and she may take help of some business analyst to find out performance metrics or what story data is telling, and if she find there significant amount of co-relation between what workers in her department is saying and what data is showing are matching then,There are two areas where she needs to start as leader of the department.

First she should examine the reason of decline in desktop sales what impact it could have own their products in long run, and if such change is going to impact negatively then she should start thinking of new product which will be demanded by their customers to make the business more sustainable therefore she should adopt product innovation approach.

Second, she needs to work on talent pipeline and keeping young generation of new employees engaged and motivated to perform well so that a higher productivity level is maintained.

2. To what extent do you think it is advisable for Hailey to interview workers in the department to get some input as to what she should do as their leader?

It is always good to know the concerns of your team while having regular interaction with them, but the decision being made by her should not only depend on the what individual employees are saying she should also gather some data and analyse the same to find out the truthfulness of statements being made by workers of her department.

If both approaches are done coherently then only it will give a useful insight and actions taken based on these insight will yield in good results.